Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Mark Wagner [5]
Under the new scheme, partially inspired by greater systems supplier involvement in projects led by Bombardier, Embraer, and Honeywell, the visiting engineers occupied cubicles in Boeing office space alongside the depleted ranks of the LAPD project team. “Boeing folks would participate just enough to ‘buy in’ at a systems level—it was a very novel approach,” Jackson added.
Other changes would impact the destiny of the 787. To help cope with a shortage of structures staff to support product development studies, Boeing agreed to a deal with Japanese aerospace companies to provide twelve engineers, led by a structural manager from Mitsubishi. The agreement continued a long-standing relationship with Japan, which was now a key partner on all the company’s major products, particularly the 767 and the 777.
Changes also came on the heels of joint new, small airplane (NSA) studies with the project development group in Renton. Early involvement in LAPD would smooth the way for massive Japanese input to the 787. The NSA work in Renton paralleled the LAPD project in Everett and, under John Yeeles, also explored cost-cutting development strategies based on lessons learned with the MD-95, recently acquired through the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas.
Three years earlier, when the beleaguered Douglas Aircraft sought to launch the MD-95, a re-engined one-hundred-seat successor to the DC-9, it ran into problems. Notoriously under-resourced and starved of investment, Douglas only succeeded by coming up with a radical scheme. Instead of trying to do everything itself, it opened its doors to share the development costs, as well as the risks and revenues, with international partners. While the business case remained doubtful for the MD-95 itself, the financial wisdom of the outsourcing model appealed to Boeing. At the time, projected development costs for the little twinjet were about $500 million, of which only $200 million was reportedly out of Douglas’s pocket.
Red tails in the sunset: Boeing’s “platform” study was aimed at simplifying the future family development strategy. The bewildering variety of Boeing legacy family models contrasted sharply with the simpler Airbus lineup, and is seen to good effect in this view of aircraft at Boeing Field. From left to right, the 777, 767, 757, 747, 737, 727, 717, and 707 line up as part of the celebrations for the 787 rollout ceremony in 2007. Mark Wagner
To help spearhead Boeing’s recovery, meanwhile, Alan Mulally was recalled from Boeing’s defense business to become president of Commercial Airplanes in September 1998. Mulally, who would later also become chief executive in March 2001, had built a reputation for leadership during the development of the 777, and many hoped his appointment would spur a renaissance.
“At that time, when Alan Mulally came back, we clearly had to demonstrate we could produce aircraft at a profit,” recalled Roundhill, who at the time was vice president of product strategy and business development. Gillette “was focused on the engineering resource and was trying to get our design house back in order after all the issues we’d had,” he added.
By the end of 1999, the LAPD study was wound up and, as it has involved outsiders, it also gave Boeing product development a chance to look itself in the mirror. The systems suppliers involved in LAPD debriefed Boeing and spoke openly about what was right—but mostly about what was wrong. The process was a valuable education for Boeing on how to work with outsiders in the future—but vitally these applied primarily to systems, rather than structural suppliers.
But as Boeing rolled into the new millennium, it was having